


crashed my car (on the way to your heart)

by SummerFrost



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Aftercare, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Anal Sex, Beer League AU, Coming of Age, Future Fic, Implied/Referenced Homophobia, Laughter During Sex, Light BDSM, M/M, Praise Kink, Rimming, Safeword Use, Slice of Life, Under-negotiated Kink, Verbal Humiliation, actually is it a quarter-life crisis if it started at 19 and just never stopped, but like in your thirties
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-04
Updated: 2018-07-04
Packaged: 2019-06-04 19:05:18
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15153650
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SummerFrost/pseuds/SummerFrost
Summary: Eric quits his job and finishes his last bottle of Merlot. It's fine.





	crashed my car (on the way to your heart)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dieofthatroar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dieofthatroar/gifts).



> I volunteered to pinch hit for the 2018 KP birthday bash, and my giftee requested a bittyparse alternate-meeting that still involved hockey. So, I accidentally created this universe that I know WAY too many things about now. I hope you like it!!
> 
> Endless thanks to my beta/cheerreading squad, blithelybonny, soundslikepenance, agrossunderstatement, and shipped-goldstandard, who basically held my whiny hand through this entire thing and helped me finish by the deadline. Additional thanks to jedusaur for the beer league knowledge.
> 
> Title from In My Mind by Walk the Moon, which is an excellent song. Honorable mention to Delicate by Tswift, which I listened to on repeat for approximately 12 hours while writing this.

“Y’all take care, now!” Eric tells his last table as he hands them their cards back, in his best _get the fuck out and tip me 20%_ voice. It’s thirty minutes past closing and his feet don’t so much hurt as they’ve ceased to exist.

The customers file out and he gets to work closing up shop. The chairs need to be stacked and the tables wiped down, and one of the dishwashers called out sick so he gets Heather to go back there to help out. Eric is helping the new server, Ron, figure out how to close-out the register when Bethany comes out of her office and asks, “Hey, Eric, can you stop in with me before you leave?”

Eric’s eye twitches. “Sure thing!”

It’s twenty minutes later that he steps into her office, knocking on the door to announce himself. She smiles at him, so he’s probably not fired. If he’s not fired, he just wants to go home and drown in his Twitter feed and leftover pie.

“You’ve been doing a great job here, Eric,” Bethany tells him after she waves with her hand to get him to close the door.

“Oh,” Eric says. He’s too deeply ambivalent about this place to be flattered. “Um, thank you.”

“We really appreciate it when people take initiative around here.” Bethany has a picture of her kids on her desk. Eric stares at it and tries to figure out which waterpark it was taken at. “The rest of the staff really looks up to you, especially your positive attitude. And you’ve really whipped them into shape! I can’t remember the last time we got out of here before midnight.”

It looks like CoCo Key. Eric hasn’t been there in years, not since Ethan and his two kids. He says, “Um, thank you,” again.

“Which is why I’m promoting you to assistant manager,” Bethany says brightly. “Congrats!”

CoCo Key is in Danvers, which is a little under an hour by car, and Eric thinks about driving there on a Saturday and wanting to lean his head out of the window and scream—he can’t remember the car or Ethan’s voice, but he can remember the feeling like he was born with it. He likes to tell his mama that he wants kids one day, and he’s glad he never told her about that man.

Bethany laughs. “Oh, sweetie, don’t look so surprised! You deserve this!”

Eric tries to make his face do something other than the thing it wants to do, but suddenly his feet hurt again and it makes the grimace a little stickier around the edges. “Oh, you’re so kind, but, um, I really don’t? Think I do?”

“Don’t be silly,” Bethany says. She touches his arm and he keeps himself from jumping. “You’re one of our best employees. I want you to feel—”

“I quit,” Eric says. Blurts, really, but there’s no time for semantics against the odd feeling in his chest that he does not care for _at all_ and the sudden sensory memory of wiping fingerprint smudges off windows. “I’m sorry? Um, I do, though, quit, and I’ll stay and train a replacement if you need one, but I really can’t work here anymore and—”

“Eric, what are you—”

“—I really think maybe I should just go? Um, yeah. I’m gonna—I’m so sorry?” Eric takes his apron off and hangs it on an empty chair. “You’ve been great, you’re a great boss, I just? Goodbye?”

Bethany doesn’t get anything else in edgewise before Eric is out the office door and scurrying across the restaurant, face burning and his lip between his teeth to make something feel predictable. This is a fine thing to do. He waves to Heather and almost laughs at her face because she looks so confused—he doesn’t know why she’s surprised by what he’s done. He’s always been afraid.

They used to be able to smell it on him, when he was on the ice or touching the metal parts of lockers. He wonders what changed.

His car is two blocks away which is a nice walk during late spring if you aren’t panicking. Eric isn’t panicking, but it could be a little cooler out. He climbs inside and drives back to his apartment on autopilot, tapping his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the radio, wondering what all the other cars on the road are leaving from or heading to.

Eric thinks that, statistically speaking, probably someone else just quit their job too. But what does he know? He failed calculus three times.

There’s light from under the apartment door, so at least one of his roommates is still awake. He gets in without having to take out his keys and locks it behind him, and finds Michael sitting on the couch, eating pizza in a pair of boxers.

Michael grunts a hello, so Eric doesn’t feel the need to say anything back as he sits down at their tiny kitchen table and opens up his laptop. He’s exhausted, and he never falls asleep before three.

He means to go to Twitter first, but his Facebook tab is blinking with a name he hasn’t heard in years.

_Adam Birkholtz messaged you._

Eric gets up and pours himself a glass of wine. He is having the _weirdest_ night.

When he gets back, the message notification hasn’t gone away, so it probably isn’t a stress hallucination. He picked the Merlot leftover from his birthday last week in the hopes that it’ll ground him a little bit, and also because it’ll go bad soon. He only turned 29, so it’s not a very good bottle—but he doesn’t make enough money to be wasteful.

Assistant managers probably make enough money to waste half a bottle of cheap red.

Eric chugs his entire glass, makes a face, and then gets back up to pour another glass. He makes it a big one to kill the bottle and then he rinses the bottle out and adds it to the collection on top of their cabinets, and then he remembers to eat something so he digs around in the fridge for his leftover Chinese food. Then he wanders back over to the computer for the second time and opens the message.

 **_Adam Birkholtz (7:53 pm):_ ** _Heyyyy it’s Holster from Samwell! Weird how it’s been, like, a billion years lol but I hope you’ve been good, bro! Anyway I’m putting together a beer league team for the summer season and I was wondering if you wanted to join? We need a couple more people and we’re all fat and slow lol so we could super use your ole spinoramas, man. Lmk if you want the deets [thumbs up emoji]_

Eric left his dinner in the microwave. He rescues that and sits back down for a third time, and then he googles what the hell a beer league is. Apparently, it’s a rec sports league—in this case, context tells Eric, for hockey. A sport he hasn’t played in a literal decade. But he remembers Adam being nice, when it counted.

 **_Eric Bittle (12:35 am):_ ** _Sorry, I was at work! And also sorry, but I’m not sure I’m interested. I haven’t touched a stick since that concussion [shrug emoji] so yall are probably better off without me [blushing emoji]_

There’s no answer right away, so Eric clicks on Adam—no, Holster’s—Facebook out of curiosity. His profile picture is of him and Ransom at Niagara Falls. It’s like unearthing a time capsule, except for the start of wrinkles around Holster’s face and the gray in Ransom’s closely trimmed beard.

Eric will throw a fit if he starts to gray at thirty, but then again, Ransom always wanted to be a doctor. That seems like the kind of thing it’s reasonable to get salt-and-pepper over. It’s nice, though, he thinks, that they’re still together.

 **_Adam Birkholtz (12:38 am):_ ** _Woahhh I should super be asleep so sorry if I zonk out on ya_

 **_Adam Birkholtz (12:38 am):_ ** _But if it helps, the whole league is co-ed and no checking. Greatest risk of injury is falling on your ass if you drink on the bench. We just wanna get together with some buds and have a good time._

 **_Adam Birkholtz (12:39 am):_ ** _We’re called the Over Its. Like, “we’re here, we’re queer, we’re over it,” get it? lol_

_[Adam Birkholtz is typing]_

It stays that way for a few minutes, but all that comes through is:

 **_Adam Birkholtz (12:41 am):_ ** _Don’t you miss having a team?_

Eric is grateful for a few things about life: the fact that three-day-old lo mein tastes serviceable lukewarm; that he can still get tipsy after one glass of wine. The fact that he’s figured out the bare minimum percentage of the time he can pick up the phone when his mama calls so that she doesn’t quit on him entirely.

It didn’t feel like a short list five minutes ago. He gets an itch to write a real one out, make it good and long, but he’s not sure what it’d prove.

 **_Eric Bittle (12:47 am):_ ** _…okay, what are the deets?_

 **_Adam Birkholtz (12:47 am):_ ** _Swawesome!! I’ll shoot you a link to the FB page_

Eric follows the link when it goes through and blanches at the entry fee. He pulls up his bank account, which he hasn’t checked in three weeks, and stares at the $500 in his savings.

He probably should have stretched the wine.

 **_Eric Bittle (12:52 am):_ ** _I’m in :)_

 

~*~

 

“Bitty, you beautiful fucking Southern cherub!” Shitty shouts as soon as Eric walks into the bar. “It’s been far too long, brother!”

Eric goes a little wide-eyed, but he doesn’t have time to react before he’s being crushed into a hug. _“Oof!_ Um, hi, Shitty. Good—good to see you, too?”

Eric remembers Shitty the best out of everyone. He’s not sure how he’d forget the first person he ever came out to. It makes him feel a little guilty about not staying in touch, but there were only so many times that Eric could stand a well-meaning speech about how _totally fine_ it was that college wasn’t for him, that everyone needed to find themselves.

Eric isn’t sure if he found himself or bought a better shovel to hide the body.

“—since I’ve seen these guys, but it’s like yesterday, you know?” Shitty is saying, and Eric might be losing circulation in a few limbs. He wriggles free and tries to fix his ruined hair, but Shitty just keeps talking. “There’s faces we haven’t met, though. We’re the old guard of the old guard, brah.”

Eric follows Shitty over to the corner booth where he sees Ransom, Holster, and a mix of people he vaguely recognizes and those he’s never seen. “Um, what?”

“Eric!” Holster booms. “Or, hey—guess we should call you Bitty again, huh?”

Eric shrugs noncommittally, and doesn’t get any words out before Holster is talking again.

“Guys, this is the guy I was talking about! Bits played with us my sophomore year and he was _hella_ fast.” Holster leans over three people to nudge a startlingly pretty blond man. “Bet he’s even faster than you, Parsley.”

Blond Guy laughs and meets Eric’s eyes with a smirk. “Oh, yeah?”

“Not faster than me, though,” a familiar voice chirps.

Eric turns to her with a shocked grin. “Lardo!”

Lardo’s aged well, her hair down past her chin with auburn highlights in it and her eyeliner as sharp as ever. She leans over the table to give him a hug and says, “Hey, Bits. Been a while.”

“I seem to recall you not bein’ able to skate,” Eric sasses, careful not to knock anything over when they untangle. Shitty is worming his way into the booth while they chat.

Lardo shrugs. “Character development, as our dear friend Johnson would say.”

“Is he around?” Bitty asks, craning to try and get a view of the bar, but then Shitty urges, “Bits, sit down!”

Eric looks at the overcrowded booth. “Oh, y’all are stuffed full. Let me just grab a chair.”

“You can sit in my lap,” the blond guy—did Holster call him _Parsley?—_ from before offers. He’s smirking again, in a way that Bitty would describe as flirtatious if he didn’t know better. “I don’t bite.”

Eric manages to stammer half a syllable before Ransom flicks the snapback off the man’s head and warns, “Don’t believe anything this one says, Bits. He’s a filthy liar.”

‘Parsley’ shoves at Ransom good-naturedly. “My partner shows up with a hickey _one time—”_

Ransom corrects, “Hick _ies,”_ at the same time that Holster says, “Part _ners,”_ in eerie unison. It’s comforting, Eric thinks, that some things really don’t change.

“Oops.” Parsley turns to Eric, spreading his hands in a _what can you do?_ gesture, and flashes his teeth. “Guess I’ve got a reputation.”

Eric slips closer to Parsley’s side of the booth as someone pushes behind him to get back to another table. “Can vampires play hockey? Who invites you into the rink?”

Parsley laughs, like he’s surprised that Eric is funny. Not mean-surprised, just glad. “I care more about other invi— _ow!”_

“No!” Holster scolds, shaking out the hand he smacked him with. “Down, thot.”

“What’s a thot?” asks someone else Bitty doesn’t know, sitting on Holster’s other side.

Holster does a double-take. “Where were you in 2018?”

“Give them a break, Holtzy,” yet another person says. Eric vaguely forgot how many people are on a hockey team. “It was a weird year. Also, hi—I’m Jessica, but Foxtrot for hockey purposes.”

Eric waves at Foxtrot and her friend, who says, “Hi, I’m Tango—or Tony. What are your pronouns? I use they/them.”

No one’s actually asked Eric that since…well, since he left Samwell. He answers, “Oh, he/him is just fine, thanks for asking! Sorry, I guess I should have asked—”

“She/her,” Jessica offers. She takes her glasses off and cleans them on her shirt.

Everyone else says their pronouns too, and Eric’s relieved that he hasn’t been misgendering anyone. He resolves to get better about not assuming.

“Anyway? No one answered my question?” Tango points out, scratching at their nose absentmindedly. “Why’s Parsley a thot?”

Parsley thunks his head on the table. “Oh my God. My last team just called me Kent, you know.”

Ransom ruffles his hair. “Exactly, and we love you more.”

“It stands for ‘that ho over there,’” Holster tells Tango. He flicks Kent on the ear and then turns, more like he’s addressing Eric. “Parsley is, as I say with the _most_ love, an ‘ethical slut,’ and we banned him fro—”

“You know I hate that term,” Shitty cuts in. Eric is struck with a sudden nostalgia he can’t place. “It implies there’s an unethical way to be a slut, like more patriarchal policing of—”

“It’s a book, dude. Chill.” Holster looks at Eric and continues, “We banned him from fucking through the beer league.”

Kent raises his hand. “What if I’m on the receiving end of—”

“Hey, Bitty, are you gonna sit?” Lardo asks. “Cause we lost Nursey on his quest to grab another round.”

That name pings something in Eric’s brain, but he’s too focused on the other part to dwell. “Oh, um—I’m sorry, I’m sort of on a tight budget? But I could—”

“Dude,” Holster says, “don’t you work at Sorellina? You’ve gotta be rolling in tip money.”

Eric eyes the door. There’s too many people to bolt effectively. “Oh, um, I…quit?”

Their half of the table goes awkwardly quiet, and Eric braces himself to spew out the story he cobbled together, but then Kent slides out of the booth and says, “Sounds like we need shots.” He puts a warm hand between Eric’s shoulder blades and nudges him towards the bar. “C’mon, newest new guy, pick your poison.”

Eric falls in step with him, ignoring Holster’s shouted reminder to _not fuck through beer league,_ which Eric would be more offended about the implication of if he wasn’t too busy looking up at Kent’s face and thinking, _Oh sweet Jesus, he has freckles._

Look, it’s been a while, and Eric is not a particularly strong man.

But then again, Eric didn’t pay $300 to join a beer league and then make everything irreparably awkward by sleeping with his most attractive teammate on the first day. He decides to split the difference by leaning a little further into Kent’s space than _strictly_ necessary when they get to the bar, and asks, “So, um, I guess you didn’t go to Samwell?”

Kent laughs and continues to take zero opportunities to remove his hand from Eric’s back. “Nah, Adam and I are coworkers. He poached me off another team. You look like a vodka guy, Bitty.”

“Yessir,” Eric says. He bites his lip thoughtfully, making a show of looking Kent up and down. “Tequila?”

Kent drops his hand lower, near Eric’s hip—so brazen and smooth that Eric honest-to-God _shudders._ “Y’know? I don’t really like labels.”

Eric lets his lip pop free from between his teeth. Kent’s eyes are dark and hard to place in the strange bar lighting, like they don’t care for being one thing at a time either. It gives Eric the good sense to think, _You’re trouble,_ but not enough to keep from asking, “Well, then, what’re you in the mood for?”

Kent smirks noncommittally and finally waves to the bartender, who’s helping someone with an impressive sleeve of geometric tattoos and nods back at him. He starts to say something, but cheers erupt from their table—a sharp contrast to the overwhelming booing from everyone else. “Oh, do you follow the NHL?”

Eric looks up at the nearest TV. Right, it’s the Stanley Cup playoffs. “Um, well enough to know we’re rooting for— _oh,_ of course.”

Jack Zimmermann just scored against the Bruins.

Kent is watching the same replay as Eric. He whistles lowly. “Damn, what a fuckin’ beauty.”

“Yup.” Eric feels the phantom tug of something. He wishes they’d gotten their drinks already.

“Did you play with him?” Kent asks, taking his hand off Eric’s hip to gesture at the TV and then putting it right back. His fingers nudge under Eric’s shirt when he turns to the bartender. “Hey, yeah, can I get three pitchers of Miller and, uh, two vodka shots?”

Eric doesn’t look away from the game. “He’s half the reason I quit.”

Kent’s skin is soft. His thumb brushes little half-circles across the curve of Eric’s torso—maybe not even on purpose. “What’s the other half?”

“Concussion,” Eric says, and then the bartender slides them their shots which is just bad timing, but they toast and down them anyway. It’s not good vodka, but Eric doesn’t mind. They’re still waiting on the pitchers, so he watches Kent scrunch up his nose and wipe at his mouth with the back of his hand.

Kent says, “Me too,” and then tilts his empty glass at the TV again—which is showing intermission, but Eric gets the idea. “I almost played with him too, actually—in juniors?”

They’re not touching anymore, but they’re standing close enough that it feels like sharing some kind of secret. Eric understands, in a far-off way, that they haven’t actually shared much of anything besides the burn in their throats. It still feels like enough to know him, and Eric wonders if Kent is like this for everyone—if that’s why Holster follows him around with warning signs. He’s afraid of the answer either way.

“Really?” Eric asks, after some of the feeling passes and he swallows the rest down.

“Got a trip to the ER and a freaked out single mom instead,” Kent tells him, knocking his knuckles against his own temple. He lays the same palm flat on the counter, parallel to Eric’s forearm. “If he was such a dick to you, guess I’m glad I never met him, yeah?”

Eric tilts his head. The vodka is catching up a little, and the bartender slides a tray with their pitchers of beer onto the counter. Neither of them makes a move for it, and Eric asks, “Do you ever wonder what could’ve happened?”

Kent’s face does something honest for a sloppy half-second before it settles into a smirk again, too-easy and less charming than before. It doesn’t make him any harder to look at, but it turns the whole room a little louder.

By the time Kent finishes saying, “Nah, not really,” Eric is already carrying the tray back to the table.

He gets it.

 

~*~

 

“Bitty, on your left!” Kent shouts. Eric passes blindly, half-spinning and half-tripping out of the way of the opponent trying to block him.

He hears a curse and the thud of someone falling onto the ice, but his eyes go to the net in time to see the puck slip past the goalie’s stick. After the customary _oh fuck where did the puck go_ from the ref, who Eric suspects has been lighting up with Shitty before games, the goal gets called and Eric casually glides over to help Kent—who is resigned to sitting on his ass—up off the ground.

“Did it hurt when you fell from heaven?” he chirps sweetly, brushing ice shavings off Kent’s shoulder for him.

Kent blows a raspberry at him, which is extra gross because Eric can _see_ the spit fleck onto his visor. “And here I was, about to offer to buy you a drink for that assist.”

“Honey, you buy all my drinks,” Eric quips, and then thumps heavier onto the bench than he meant to because _oh my God_ , that is less flirtatious than he meant it to be and more just sailing right into pathetic. Fuck, he was actually kind of excited about that goal, too, and now he just—

Kent leans behind Eric to brace a hand near his far hip, his arm brushing the back of Eric’s jersey, and lets him off the hook. Sort of.

“Does that make me your sugar daddy?” he asks, knocking the front of his helmet near Eric’s temple. “’Cause, baby, I should be paying you _way_ better.”

Eric fights the flush rising to his face and the urge to turn his face towards the puff of Kent’s breath. “I…”

“Less flirting, more fuckin’ _hockey!”_ Shitty shouts, shoving onto the bench between them and pushing Kent back onto the ice. “I’m dying.”

Kent laughs, flashes Eric a grin through his mouthguard, and shoots off across the rink.

 

~*~

 

Eric is laying on the floor, which, like most things in his life, is a terrible decision. He’s not alone, at least, because Lardo, Ransom, Nursey, and Kent are all also on the floor. They are all in various stages of not-really-drunk-anymore and complaining about how much their collective joints will hurt in the morning. Eric is not sure when he became old—or why, if he’s old now, he still gets butterflies every time Kent’s fingers sort of just barely brush against his hand.

He might be more drunk than not.

The overhead lights are off so that everyone can stare at the ceiling without dying, but the fan is whirling around. Holster is auctioning off the last piece of pizza to the highest bidder, with offers including: one beer next weekend, a foot rub, _two_ beers next weekend, and Ransom’s undying love and affection (offered by Nursey).

“Do you want the pizza?” Eric asks Kent without looking at him.

Kent shrugs, fulling knocking his hand against Eric’s and leaving it there. “Eh, kinda.”

Eric flops his other hand in the air to get Holster’s attention. “You can have the second slice of pie next time I bake.”

“That’s weak, bro,” says Nursey. “Not even the first?”

Kent tells him, “The first slice is the worst, duh. Everyone knows that.”

“Huh,” Nursey says.

“It’s true.” Eric flails his arm in Holster’s approximate direction and then drops it to the ground again. “Holster, final offer.”

Holster lays the pizza box on Kent’s chest, because apparently Eric is not subtle. “Do I get to pick the flavor?”

Kent traces his pinky finger across Eric’s first two knuckles and fumbles with the pizza box with his other hand, humming with triumph when it finally flips open.

“Yes,” Eric answers. “Do you want blueberry?”

“You know me so well,” Holster says, exaggeratedly touched.  

Eric keeps a list taped to the fridge, which his roommates only don’t think is weird because their names are on it too.

“Okayyy,” Ransom says with a groan, pushing up off the floor. “Time to go home to the wife.”

Eric tilts his head back to give Ransom a disapproving look, because that’s kind of a weird joke, and everyone seems to think so too because no one else is laughing either, except—everyone just says goodbye or ignores him, like it’s a normal and…true thing to—

“Wait, sorry,” Eric says. “You have a wife?”

Nursey and Ransom both laugh. Kent stuffs his half-eaten pizza between his teeth and starts texting.

“Uh, yeah?” Ransom answers. He flashes his left hand over Eric’s face. “Dude, we’ve been hanging out for three weeks. I wear a ring. I’ve got _kids_.”

Eric feels lightheaded. It’s going to be a very weird hangover. “No, I—um, this is awkward. Sorry, never—” His phone buzzes in his pocket. “Nevermind?”

 **_Kent from hockey (10:37 pm):_ ** _Don’t say it_

Ransom is grinning, though. “No, no, this is hilarious. What’d you think?”

 **_Eric (10:37 pm):_ ** _????_

“Um,” says Eric.

Kent chucks his phone at Eric. He misses; it bounces off Eric’s stomach and lands a few feet away instead.

“Don’t make fun of me,” Eric begs the room at large. He can feel them all staring at him.

“Who’d you think I was married to, Bits?” Ransom wheedles. “C’mon.”

Holster says, “Bro, lay off.”

Eric’s entire body is hot with embarrassment, and he wants to get off the floor and maybe quit beer league and potentially move to Portland or something—Maine or Oregon, he’s not picky—and he doesn’t see a way out other than to blurt, “Niagara Falls! Every _year!_ Holster has the same _ring!”_

Kent pats Eric on the wrist. Eric jerks away from him.

“See, bro,” Ransom tells Holster, “I told you that spot was hella romantic.”

Eric is too afraid to sit up and get a look at anyone’s face.

Lardo says, “To be fair, your kids are at the same summer camp.”

“I’m sorry, I just, oh my God, but I can’t believe I’m the only one who’s ever thought this?” Eric does look up then, and finds Ransom still grinning and Lardo and Nursey casually nodding in agreement. “I mean, y’all always talked about bein’ drift compatible, and there was that party—”

“Hey, Adam,” Kent asks, “when’s Jo back from her sister’s?”

“Uh.” Holster clears his throat. He’s got his glasses off, twirling them in his hands. “Next week.”

Kent bites a chunk of crust off his pizza and talks while he chews. “Cool. Sh’gonna come to a game?”

“Oh, yeah, if she can—”

“Thanks for the laugh, Bitty,” Ransom says. “I should totes get home, though?”

Lardo grabs at Ransom’s pant leg to pull herself off the ground. “Same. I’ve gotta be at the office by eight.”

Eric stares at her, the way she towers over him from his spot on the carpet with her smudged eyeliner and the lack of bags under her eyes and the nail polish she hasn’t picked off her fingers. He can’t remember if he used to know her or if he told himself things that seemed like they could have been true and stuck them to the blank space.

If he drew her from memory, she’d be covered in acrylic in a studio somewhere. Ransom would be with Holster—one set of children and maybe at CoCo Key, somewhere with water and somewhere happy—and Shitty would be at the same law firm with a different shadow.

If he drew himself, he wouldn’t know where to start.

“Catch you guys later,” Kent says, and they’re both gone.

Eric lays back down on the ground.

Nursey pulls something off the coffee table in Eric’s peripherals and asks, “Yo, can I turn on some music?”

“Uh. Sure,” says Holster, and Nursey says, “Chill.”

The Pandora station starts up on the TV and Eric is watching the ceiling fan again. He keeps meaning to get Kent his phone back, but his hand doesn’t move. He breathes a lot instead.

It’s not normal, how bothered he is. He can’t place it, beyond the scratch of the carpet against his bare skin and the baseboards pushing back into his bones, except that he’s thinking about being eight years old and peeling layers of paint off the banisters on MooMaw’s porch until he found the graying wood and maybe that’s the whole of it.

He leaves when Kent does and doesn’t look at Holster because it feels like the thing to do.

 

~*~

 

Their entire third line misses the fourth game of the season because they’re from Holster and Kent’s company, in some department that’s away on a retreat, and Ransom is away with his wife (his _wife),_ and Shitty has a big case he had to stay too late at the office for. So it’s the eight of them, plus Tango in goal, and when everyone is hanging out near the bench while they wait for the ice to clear Holster leans in close to Kent and asks, “You gonna be okay, bro?”

Kent is chewing on his mouthguard louder than normal, staring at center ice. “Why wouldn’t I be.”

Eric looks over, curiosity piqued, and asks, “What’s going on?”

“Nothing,” says Kent.

“We’re playing Parsley’s old team,” Holster answers, ignoring him. “They’re a bunch of dilweeds.”

Eric glances across the ice at the other bunch of rag tag players. “Oh. Um?”

“Fuck ‘em.” Holster slaps Kent on the back, kind of hard, then pats Eric on the head. “That’s why we’re the Over Its.”

He skates over to Tango to talk with them while they do warmup stretches, leaving Eric and Kent alone—relatively speaking. Everyone else seems in the zone or is lost in a different conversation.

Eric tries to watch Kent’s face, but nothing happens to it. He nudges him with an elbow, and Kent nudges back, so Eric comments, “Adam poached you, huh?”

“Didn’t say I was a hard catch,” Kent shoots back. He’s smirking, mouthguard clamped halfway between his teeth, but it falls a little flat. “Guess they didn’t like that my snapback wearage was, like, ironic.”

Eric doesn’t know what to say to that. He wishes that they weren’t geared up already, that he could hold Kent’s hand instead of knocking their gloves together and hoping they can both imagine the same warm skin. Kent taps Eric’s skate with his stick, which is something.

The ref tells everyone to get ready for the puck drop.

“Hey,” Eric says instead of moving.

Kent clacks his mouthguard back into place.

Eric leans up and in, balancing on the end of his blades, and presses a kiss right along Kent’s jaw—the best he can reach with their visors in the way. “Let’s humiliate ‘em,” he whispers, and skates away before his cheeks finish turning pink.

 

~*~

 

Eric’s not sure that he’s ever played this much hockey at once. They’re down so many people but it’s a tie game and his entire body is screaming at him to lay down on the ice and welcome death until it isn’t—until the endorphins really kick in and suddenly it’s the best he’s felt in years, since—since he doesn’t know and he doesn’t care except to wonder who’s been hiding this from him. Like there’s some secret thing he could have been chasing instead of dragging his loafers along the concrete.

He tries to spin around a defenseman and tumbles, knocks the puck away with his stick instead. Gets up before his calves can remember what resting feels like. Takes a pass back from Foxtrot and looks for Kent, who’s looking for him.

He shoots it over and hears the pass connect, glimpses the smile on Kent’s face before he fakes the shot. The goalie is still looking for the puck when it smacks back against Eric’s stick and he lobs it in with what he meant to be a wrister but was something weird and in between, but it doesn’t matter if it gets the job done and Kent is hugging him as the whistle blows.

 _“Fuck_ yeah!” Kent screams right into Eric’s ear. “I fucking love you!”

 

~*~

 

Eric doesn’t think about it until they’re walking to the bar, except he’s been thinking about it the whole entire fucking time. He’s still coming down from the endorphin high and the win, and everyone is loud around them because it’s a celebration walk to the bar, but there’s too much blood in his ears or something because they’re far away. Mostly he feels Kent.

He’s not sure why he’s angry. He’s pretty sure the only thing he really knows about himself is that he would very much like it if everyone loved him all the time. He bakes pies and puts up curtains and joins hockey teams. His chest feels tight.

“Penny for your thoughts,” Kent says. He slings a friendly arm around Eric’s shoulders, and Eric hates it so much that he leans in closer and shuts his eyes. “And by penny, I mean copious amounts of alcohol and maybe some cheese fries?”

“That ethical slut thing,” Eric asks. He trips over the sidewalk and keeps his eyes open so Kent won’t have to catch him again. “Is that, um…real?”

Kent huffs out a laugh. “What?”

Eric drags his teeth across his bottom lip. “Um, you know, are you…well—I, um, I googled the book.”

“I guess,” Kent says. The way his arm is draped, he can brush his thumb across Eric’s collarbone. “I mean, I have, like, a lotta sex, if that’s what you’re asking.”

 _Then why not me?_ Eric thinks, before he can ignore it. It’s been a month and a half and that’s longer than it takes for Eric to crawl out of his skin for almost anything. Tango says something that makes everyone laugh and Foxtrot gently shoves them into a parked car. Eric asks, “And, um, the, um—the nonmonagamy stuff?”

“I mean, Adam’s the one with the book.” Kent pulls at Eric’s elastic-y shirt and lets it snap against his skin. “Like, sure, I guess I’ve never had a fucking LTR or whatever, but that’s not? I don’t know. Maybe he just wants to, like, believe it works for someone.”

Holster is in front of the group, head down while he texts on his phone. Eric stares at his shirt, tugging against his shoulder blades.

“Okay,” he says eventually, and then, “Do you just not like it, or?”

“You know how you run away from everything?” Kent asks.

Eric rests his head against the edge of Kent’s bicep. “That’s mean.”

“I think it’s like that for me but in, like, reverse,” Kent says. He should be hard to hear over everyone else, their victory-fueled euphoria and general racket, but he isn’t. “I think I was born this way.”

“I don’t get it,” says Eric.

They’re coming up on the bar. Kent leans in close, his mouth brushing against Eric’s ear, like his teeth are waiting to tug at the cartilage. Eric thinks about Kent saying he doesn’t bite, Ransom calling him a liar.

“Run,” Kent offers, softly.

The team pours into the bar. Eric turns and looks at Kent in his label-less eyes and gapes at him, throat working but nothing else. Kent smiles, tilting his head, and walks backwards through the door.

Eric follows him.

 

~*~

 

Kent delivers on the cheese fries.

 

~*~

 

Eric maxes out a credit card. He starts working his way through the second one until, under the combined glares of Holster and Foxtrot, he agrees to stash it and start actually looking for a job. He’s complaining to the ice crew about it while he helps them reset the rink after stick-and-puck practice—because what else could he be doing with his time?—when Elise tries to grab the bucket of pucks out of his hands and asks, “Why don’t you just work here?”

Eric lets go of the bucket on a five second delay. “Excuse me?”

“We’re hiring,” Elise tells him. She gives him a weird look. “You didn’t see the flyers?”

“Oh.” Eric opens the gate for her. “I may’ve blocked those from my memory, on account of I don’t really want a job.”

Elise laughs, which is nice of her. She drops the puck bucket and starts unlacing her skates. “We need another assistant manager. I’m leaving at the end of the month and these guys—” she gestures at Thomas and Ysabel, “—don’t want more hours.”

Thomas and Ysabel are both in college. They probably have better things to do than work here.

“I’m not sure I’m qualified,” Eric says.

Elise arches an eyebrow. “We’ve been looking for weeks. I’ll put in a good word for you. Bring some cookies or something.”

“Oh, um, okay?” Eric finally bends down and unties his skates. He focuses on the way the laces scratch at his fingers when he tugs at the knots. “Thank you? I, um—thanks.”

He parts ways with the ice crew and grabs his bag from the locker room, thinking about looking for the flyers and staring at his shoes the entire way to the door. He really does need a job, and he likes this shabby rink in its own way. Maybe they’ll let him skate for free. He could get his single axel back, if he worked at it a little.

Eric lifts his head just in time to catch a glimpse of Kent walking to his car. He abandons the bulletin board near the entryway and jogs outside to catch up, calling out to Kent.

“Hey!” he says, smiling. Kent turns to look at him and waves, smiling back. “Didn’t know you were still here.”

Kent shrugs and leans against his car. “I was killing time over at Starbucks. What’s up?”

“Oh, okay.” Eric feels almost lightheaded, like he’s too aware of his breath. He adjusts his bag on his shoulder and says, “I, um, might have a job?”

“Dude, really? That’s awesome!” Kent’s smile widens, and he pulls Eric into a sudden hug. “Where at?”

Eric leans in, fingers twitching with the urge to curl in the back of Kent’s shirt. He’s suddenly so touch-starved, and he doesn’t know why—it’s not like they don’t hug, and it’s not like he’s never had a job before. He’s had too many. Kent’s hand slides a half-inch up Eric’s back, towards his neck, and stops.

“I guess you can quit buying me drinks,” Eric says instead, because that feels more important. It’s just a job.

Kent hesitates. His head is tucked in low, and his hair tickles against Eric’s temple, and there’s something in his voice that could almost hurt. “Do you want me to?”

Eric swallows and then pulls away, putting his body against the hot metal of the car. It burns through his shirt. He says, “No.”

A group of kids tumbles out of the rink, screaming and laughing. Eric doesn’t turn to look, but Kent is watching them with an almost hyper-focus.

The kids have all piled into a minivan two cars over before Kent says, “I’ve, uh, gotta go to therapy.”

“Oh, okay,” says Eric.

“I could pick you up at eight,” Kent offers. He flicks his eyes down to Eric’s mouth and then his hands like he’s wondering what could go in them. Eric presses himself firmer against the car and feels the sweat pool on his lower back. “If I was gonna buy you a drink.”

“I could use one,” Eric jokes, his voice too thin for it to really land, but Kent laughs with him anyway. He’s good, like that.

He touches a light hand to Eric’s hip and murmurs, “See ya soon, Bits,” over the sound of his car clicking unlocked.

Eric takes a step back to give him space to drive away, and sits in his car for seventeen minutes with the AC off and the evening heat boiling everything out of him until his hands can’t shake.

It’s good, Eric thinks, that Kent offered to pick him up. It doesn’t leave anywhere for him to not-be.

 

~*~

 

“Do you want kids?” Eric asks about a week later. He’s half-watching Kent eat and half-thinking about how he’ll probably have to talk to his mother tomorrow about the job, and they can both pretend that she’s proud of him for something. He thinks she’d be proud of him for this, if he’d say it out loud, because they’re running out of options.

“Not bio ones,” Kent answers with his mouth full, then does a spiral with his fork near his temple, swallows, and flatly adds, “Gotta pretty fucked up genetic cocktail.”

“Yeah,” Eric agrees. He slides his foot against Kent’s ankle, pressing strips of skin to skin, doing everything but saying it. “You do have pretty bad teeth.”

Kent snorts red wine all over the nicest tablecloth Eric owns. His mama would probably bleach it, but he’ll just throw it in the wash with everything else and see what happens. He doesn’t own very nice things.

 

~*~

 

Kent trips over his toe pick for the third time in half an hour and wipes out on the ice. “Ow! Son of a—”

“Hush, there’re children around, Kenneth!” Eric scolds, but he smiles fondly as he helps Kent back up. “I _said_ you could keep your hockey skates.”

Kent keeps Eric’s hand as they set out skating again. “Where’s the fun in that, babe?”

Eric rolls his eyes, steering them both to the left to avoid a wobbly toddler. He hides his free hand in his pocket to warm it and, eyes still fixed on the traffic ahead of them, asks, “Hey, so, um—what do you do, anyway?”

“What?” Kent raises an eyebrow and clumsily adjusts his snapback one-handed. “You know where I work.”

“Well, yeah,” Eric says, “but you never talk about, like, your _job.”_

Kent gives up on his hat and hooks his thumb through his belt loop instead. “Ah, see—that’s the thing? My job title says ‘accountant,’ but that’s actually my cover for the CIA.”

Eric laughs. He looks over at Kent’s face, getting caught up by the way his nose is wrinkled by his smile, and teases, “I didn’t know I was holdin’ hands with a secret agent.”

“Top secret,” Kent emphasizes. His voice is so warm, so easy, that Eric wishes he’d never heard it. “I shouldn’t even be telling you this.”

Eric lets go of his hand and turns to face him, skating backwards towards the boards. “I guess it’d be pretty dangerous,” he says softly, “if someone were to get involved with you.”

“Very.” Kent slides his hand into Eric’s hair right before his head bumps against the glass. “I should probably try to scare you away.”

Eric stares at the hickey he didn’t leave on Kent’s neck. “Why haven’t you?”

Kent kisses him softly, once, warm-mouthed and like flint trying, trying to catch on something, until Eric’s throat tastes like smoke.

“Wanna get dinner before the game tomorrow?” Kent asks.

Eric has a view of the door from here. A family walks through, swinging their child between their arms. “Okay,” he says, and pushes off the wall.

 

~*~

 

“I’ve got a temper,” Kent says. They’re laying in the grass in the park, watching clouds drift across the sky and probably getting weird farmer’s tans.

Eric says, “Oh, honey, so do I.”

Kent’s fingers are skimming up and down Eric’s arm. “Mine’s bigger.”

Eric snorts, looking over at him. “You wanna whip ‘em out and measure?”

Kent smirks faintly and shifts downwards, wriggling so he can rest his head on Eric’s chest. He’s quiet for a moment, eyes turned upward, and then he pokes gently at Eric’s ribs. “C’mon, you’ve gotta answer too. If you could change one thing.”

“Ooh, look!” Eric says. He points up at the clouds, tapping Kent’s cheek to turn his head. “That one looks like a bunny.”

Kent huffs out a tired laugh and mutters, “Yeah, figures,” and he doesn’t bother looking but his hair is still brushing up against Eric’s jaw, which maybe counts for something.

The thing is that it’s nearly too warm out and the grass is almost itchy, and Eric has felt like he’s been holding a time bomb since the first night he put an empty shot glass down next to one of Kent’s at the bar. The thing is that he’s not tired enough of turning other people into containment chambers.

“I wish I was braver,” he says. “Take me home with you.”

Kent slides a hand up under Eric’s shirt, resting low over his belly and feeling the way it doesn’t move with his shallow breaths. “Yeah,” he says again. “Okay.”

 

~*~

 

Kent has a modest house in the suburbs, bigger than he seems to need and probably smaller than he could afford. Eric hasn’t lived somewhere two stories since he was still stashing away money for bus tickets out of Georgia, just in case. There’s a little lawn and an empty garden, and Eric has the terrifying thought that he’d plant hydrangeas.

“Sorry it’s a mess in here,” Kent says, unlocking the door and holding it open. “Don’t pet the cat—she’ll come to you.”

Eric takes his shoes off in the foyer and kicks a jingle ball with one foot. A white blur streaks out of the kitchen and under the couch, and Eric stares at a painting signed by _Larissa_ hanging over the couch and asks, “Can I get a, um—a glass of wine or something?”

Kent closes the door and flips on the light. “It’s three PM,” he says, in that way that’s neutral but also isn’t, and then when Eric doesn’t answer, “We don’t have to do this. I was fine taking it slo—”

“I just don’t want—” Eric cuts off. He grabs Kent’s shirt and pulls him in until their bodies nearly touch and Eric can smell the park on him, feel the crackling chemistry underneath that’s been taunting him since they met. “I don’t need time. I—I need…anything else.”

Kent touches at Eric’s chin, not urging him to look up so much as suggesting. Eric listens, meeting his gaze and parting his lips, waiting, willing something to break that isn’t the white-knuckled grip he has on Kent’s old Islanders tee.

Kent kisses him. Eric pushes up into it, sliding his hands up to Kent’s neck and leading with his teeth in a way that makes Kent stumble backwards with a moan.

“Fuck,” Kent says. He runs a hand through his hair. “Fuck, I—upstairs?”

Eric nods, swallowing thickly. He follows Kent into what must be the master and immediately gets backed against the bed, letting his knees buckle and pulling Kent down with him. He slides a hand under Kent’s shirt while they kiss again, tickling at his soft stomach to make him huff out a laugh before thumbing at a nipple.

Kent shudders. He breaks their kiss to suck at the underside of Eric’s jaw. “Those’re sensitive.”

“Mm?” Eric hums, teasing with the side of his nail. “Good or bad?”

“I, uh—” Kent stammers. He sinks his hips down, rubbing his semi against Eric’s thigh. “Christ, I think you’re gonna kill me.”

“Not so soon,” Eric teases, pulling his hand away, but, good Lord—he thinks he’d like to. Kent has a pliability to him that he hadn’t expected, this sense that Eric could melt him right down and lap him up. “Do you mind if I shower first, actually?”

Kent’s smirk is bordering on dopey. “Can I come?”

Eric laughs, surprised. It’s kind of a weird thing to ask, seeing as the point is to make himself more presentable _before_ sex. But Kent seems so earnest about it that he’s not sure he minds. “Sure, honey, it’s your house.”

He rolls out from under Kent and grabs his wrist, walking them backwards towards what he hopes is the bathroom. He guesses right—Kent reaches to open the door and nudges him against the sink, ducking down to kiss him again. He’s a good kisser, and humble about it—not too much tongue, letting Eric take the lead when he figures out that’s what Eric wants.

“You’re good at this,” Eric breaks away to murmur, and he swears Kent’s cheeks turn a little pinker. Interesting.

“Do you want, uh—shower?” Kent asks, his hands lightly pushing up at Eric’s shirt.

“Yeah,” Eric says. He puts his hand at Kent’s wrist, caressing at the pulse point soothingly. “Why don’t you get the water started?”

Kent nods eagerly and move away, tugging back the shower curtain to reach the faucet. The shower kicks on and he fiddles with the temperature, back still turned.

Eric should probably stop pushing this—as tempted as he is, and even as much as he suspects Kent is submitting on purpose. It wouldn’t be right to take advantage.

“Bitty?” Kent asks. He’s still fully clothed, one hand dripping water onto his socks from the shower.

 _Give me strength,_ Eric thinks. He’s not sure to who, because God seems like an odd choice for that particular request, but he probably shouldn’t be picky. He says, “Comin’, honey,” and pulls his shirt over his head.

That cues Kent into stripping too, and this time Eric initiates the kiss when they both step into the shower and the warm water soaks his hair, streaming down his neck and easing the tension in his shoulders. It’s a strange place to be intimate with someone for the first time, he thinks, eyelids damp against the spray and his hands slipping against the wet skin of Kent’s hips. He feels overexposed and, paradoxically, a little filthy. When he opens his mouth to deepen the kiss, he tastes brassy water pooling between his tongue and teeth.

“So, like, am I reading this right?” Kent asks. He nuzzles his nose against Eric’s cheek. “Are you…?”

 _God._ Eric nudges them both out of the spray and wonders how he can still be surprised by anything Kent does. “I’m gonna need more words than that, honey.”

Kent drops his eyes to Eric’s thighs, his growing erection, maybe somewhere near his navel before he finally settles on the shampoo bottles on Eric’s left. He clears his throat. “Are you into, uh—I mean, you’re, like, more of a dom, right?”

Eric laughs awkwardly, then apologizes by touching at Kent’s hand. “Almost exclusively. I’m okay with a little manhandling and such, if it’s mostly vanilla otherwise.”

“Okay.” Kent smirks, some of that confident undercurrent coming back. He steps in closer again, his dick brushing against Eric’s hip. “I’m into it.”

“I’ve gotta say,” Eric admits, reaching up to thumb at Kent’s bottom lip, “I didn’t, well…expect this. Especially when we met, you were so…?”

“Cocky?” Kent suggests. He grins into a kiss, more teeth than anything else. He barely pulls away enough to get the words out. “I’m told that’s part of the charm.”

Eric assures him, “You’re very charming, baby.”

Kent hums happily, kissing him deeper this time and steadying him by the hips.

“God, I wanna eat you up,” Eric says. He combs his fingers through Kent’s damp hair, scratching lightly at the scalp. “But ‘m gonna die if we stand here negotiatin’.”

Kent’s mouth is at Eric’s neck, suckling gently. His fingers are pruning from the water, strange against skin. He comes up for air long enough to offer, “I’ve got pretty deep limits.”

Eric swears softly, tightening his hand in Kent’s hair and backing up until his shoulders hit the tile. “Are you sure? We could just keep it—”

“Just see how it goes,” Kent tells him. His hips are twitching against Eric’s thigh, involuntarily chasing the friction. “If you come up on something I’ll tell you.” He hesitates. “But, like, no pressure if—”

“Okay.” Eric smiles, softening the firmness a little. He tugs at Kent’s hair, urging him back. “Why don’t you let me actually wash up now?”

Kent responds by pressing Eric more firmly against the wall. “Aww, am I in your way?”

Eric fights the urge to laugh. Instead, he slides a hand down to the base of Kent’s neck and comments mildly, “You’re bein’ a brat.”

Kent’s head drops fully onto Eric’s shoulder, which is exactly what he wanted. God, Kent is so _easy._ Eric thinks he could put him wherever he wanted—which is a more enticing proposition in places that aren’t a narrow tub-and-shower, and another reason why Eric wants to hurry up this part of the afternoon.

He lets Kent stay draped over him, reaching for the soap to the best of his ability, which is just as well because Kent starts mouthing at his collarbone and damn, if that isn’t a nice distraction from how decidedly un-sexy he feels cleaning himself up.

“Oral fixation?” Eric teases after the second hickey, washing his hands off in the spray.

Kent answers with his teeth still scraping against his handiwork. “Only thing my mouth’s good for.”

Eric’s heart pangs. He slides a hand back into Kent’s hair and softly answers, “I don’t think that’s true,” which pulls a sound from Kent that might be a whimper.

And if Kent were really his—if they knew each other better, if they’d felt out more places and burrowed around the soft spots before—maybe Eric wouldn’t spoil him so much. He gets the feeling that Kent could stand a little meanness, maybe even thrives on it. But he doesn’t want to be wrong.

He doesn’t know how to ask, standing with the shower still running and soapy water trickling down the backs of his thighs, if he’s missing the mark with how gently he grips Kent by the jaw.

“Go get me a towel, honey,” he says, teasing his thumb at the corner of Kent’s mouth. He pulls it away before Kent can suck on it, savoring the thrill he gets at the wounded look on his face. “Now?”

That works. Kent scrambles out of the shower, dripping water all over the floor as he vanishes around the corner. Eric shuts the water off and doesn’t have to wait long before Kent is back, a single towel held out for him.

“Good boy,” Eric tells him, taking the towel and purposefully not looking while he says it, though he tries to peek. Kent looks uncomfortable—the good kind, if Eric is reading him right. He wants to make Kent squirm.

When he’s finished with the towel, he comes in close and ruffles Kent’s hair with it, then moves down to his shoulders and arms. Kent’s face is red, and he looks like he might be working up to protesting as Eric moves on to drying his chest, gently fluffing his pubic hair and taking extra care with his still half-hard dick. Eric shushes him preemptively and moves to his thighs.

It’s possible Kent’s eyes are getting wet. Eric’s always liked making people cry, maybe a little too much, even for the kind of sex he likes to have. Normally he does it with the tearing down, but he thinks Kent came to him like that already. He can try it in reverse.

“Hmm,” Eric hums, tossing the towel to the floor. He drags his eyes all the way up Kent’s body to his face. “Think you could lift me?”

“Uh, maybe not a long time,” Kent answers honestly. “But like, to the bed? Yeah.”

Eric says, “Good enough,” and Kent takes the hint, lifting Eric by the backs of his thighs and taking the opportunity to nip at his ear while Eric wraps his legs around his waist to hang on. Eric turns Kent’s head with a nudge and kisses him as he walks them out of the bathroom, taking a hand off Eric’s ass to feel for the door frame.

It’s pretty hot, Eric won’t lie, being carried around. Especially when he knows he’s still running the show.

He has that thought at about the same time Kent trips over the cat, curses, and ends up dumping both their asses on the floor. Eric whacks an elbow on the way down but mostly catches himself on Kent’s lap, which is nice.

The cat bolts back out of the bedroom with a yowl.

“Fuck,” Kent says, and then he starts laughing.

Eric puts a hand to his mouth, trying to keep it in, but they’re in a naked heap on the floor, probably both sporting mild carpet burns, and, really—what else is there to do besides laugh too? It feels good—better than hands on his thighs or the grip he had in Kent’s hair—to be fighting giggles and losing, his face hidden in Kent’s neck and a hand braced against his chest.

“Sorry I’m so utterly uncool,” Kent tells him. He runs his thumb along the curve of Eric’s shoulder. “I usually save that for, like, the second round of orgasms—minimum.”

Eric catches his breath enough to make a solid attempt at keeping his voice even. “Cat’s outta the bag,” he says, which immediately cracks them both up again.

“I can’t…believe…I’m having sex with you,” Kent wheezes, tries to compose himself. “I dunno if you deserve the shit I was gonna do with my tongue, after that one.”

“Rude,” Eric says, then pauses. He drags his teeth along the side of Kent’s throat. “…what stuff with your tongue?”

Kent trails his fingers down Eric’s ass, pressing lightly at where he’s still a little open from the shower. “You said you’ve been tested, yeah?”

Eric wonders if he hit his head when they fell. He blinks rapidly to refocus his vision and manages, “Oh.”

Kent moves his hand away. “If you don’t wan—”

“God, yes, very much, put your tongue in me,” Eric says. His voice might actually be going a little thin with how much he wants, but _God._ “Like, yesterday.”

“We had a game yesterday.” Kent smirks, leaning his head back against the bedframe. “I think that would’ve been a little awk—”

Eric spanks him on his flank, more for show than anything—he doesn’t even have to shake the sting out of his palm—but Kent’s jaw practically unhinges and his eyes go a little glassy and hungry. It’s a good look on him.

Kent purses his lips together and then wets them, and the words come out a little hoarse when he says, “Yes, sir.”

They scramble up onto the bed and Kent spreads Eric out on his belly, running his hands up the backs of his thighs and licking his lips again. He looks a little nervous, so Eric takes the risk and doubles down.

“Show me how good you are, baby,” he urges over his shoulder softly, and Kent mouths something that was probably supposed to be a word before he buries his face in Eric’s ass.

Eric shoves his face into the crook of his arm and fights the urge to whimper as soon as Kent’s tongue touches his hole. God, it’s been _years_ since he was with someone who liked to do this, and even longer without a condom. It’s warm and wet, Kent’s tongue inside him, and it makes Eric feel _sloppy._ He wiggles his hips, trying to get friction on his dick without pushing back too much.

Kent licks him open slowly, one hand on his ass and the other curling two fingers against his perineum—and it’s not often that Eric wants to beg but he’d do it now. For more, for it to stop, for anything except needing a thing he can have enough of. His dick is leaking against his stomach.

“You’re so—good at this,” Eric pants, struggling to push up onto his forearms and giving up. His whole body feels like jelly. “God, Kent, you have no _idea._ I’m—this is— _fuck.”_

He’s got no idea what else to say. Kent whines against him, breathing hard. He can feel how wet he’s getting—spit everywhere, dripping with it.

“Can you—your fingers?” Eric asks, and it takes Kent scissoring two fingers inside him for a tongue to fit between for him to realize he’s not the one shaking. It’s Kent, unsteady hands and a quivering mouth—maybe for something specific, something Eric should know how to give him—bringing him off while he tries not to rut against the mattress and tries not to fall apart. _For what?_

Eric gives up when Kent finally finds his prostate, pressing at it with two fingers while he tongues at his rim, and sobs into the mattress. He’s lost all composure, but he’s still thinking about Kent’s face in the bathroom.

“You’re so, so good, Kent. God, you can’t imagine— _thank you,”_ Eric chokes out, fighting back the urge to come, thinking he’ll have to warn Kent soon. “I’m—this is—the best—you’re so, so beautiful and—”

“Stop,” Kent croaks. He pulls away entirely and Eric turns to look at him in shocked concern. “Just, stop?”

“Honey, I—oh my God, are you okay?” Eric flips onto his back, apologizing in advance to his _very_ confused erection. “Oh, sweetheart, why’re you crying? What’d I do?”

Kent presses the heels of his palms into his eyes. “Fuck.”

Eric swallows down the lump in his throat. He’d been thinking about bringing Kent to tears earlier, but he hadn’t wanted it like this. He knows the difference between a good cry and not. “Kent, talk to me?”

“I’m sorry,” Kent says instead. He drops his hands and stares through Eric with red eyes. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

Eric changes tactics, pulling back the comforter and slipping underneath instead. He holds it open for Kent and offers, “Come here?”

Kent nods obediently, then crawls across the bed and snuggles under the sheets.

Eric reaches out tentatively, afraid to set Kent off again, but Kent tilts his face to press his cheek into Eric’s palm. They lay there on their sides for a moment, then Eric says, “I really—please tell me what’s going on here.”

Kent’s skin is damp under Eric’s hand and his eyes are still wet, but he’s not actively crying anymore. He waits long enough to answer that Eric is about to give up.

“It was just, uh,” he says, pausing again. He closes his eyes and the tears bead up on his lashes. “Like—like overstimulation, I guess?”

Eric bites his lip. “The…the praise?”

“Yeah.” Kent blinks his eyes open and stares somewhere past Eric’s shoulder. “I just—freak out over it sometimes. I get it’s stupid or whatever—”

“It’s not,” Eric cuts in.

Kent rolls onto his back. “I dunno, it’s like—I’ve never—fuck, do we gotta talk about this?”

Eric sighs, rolling over too. He’s starting to regret the decision to get under the comforter—he’s always been a bit of a space heater, and they’re both sweating. “Probably.”

“I’m not good,” Kent says flatly. “You can’t make me believe it.”

“Of  _course_ I found your brick wall.” Eric laughs softly. He brushes his hand across Kent’s knuckles and Kent grabs it. “Lord, what a clusterfuck, huh?”

“Yeah,” Kent agrees.

Eric squeezes his hand. He looks over and finds Kent watching the ceiling, jaw clenched. “I’m so sorry. I’m not—this isn’t even normally how I do things.”

Kent huffs out a laugh, tracing his thumb across Eric’s skin, and says, “I didn’t think it would be? I mean, that’s why I didn’t—or, I would’ve said—why _did_ you?”

“I…don’t know,” Eric admits. He rolls onto his side again, cautiously brushing his fingers across Kent’s stomach to reach his hip. _God._ What the fuck are they doing? “I mean, I…I guess I could tell it’d dig in a little. I just thought—it’d be in the good way? I’m really—”

“Sorry,” Kent finishes. He massages at his eyebrows with his free hand, voice clipped. “Yeah, I get it.”

Eric doesn’t say anything.

Kent sighs. “Fuck. _I’m_ sorry. I shouldn’t, like, snap at you.”

“It’s okay,” Eric says.

Kent shifts downwards so he can press his forehead to the top of Eric’s head. “I guess maybe it would be—in the good way—if I knew you better or something? I—uh. Liked it, until I couldn't, like, take it.”

“Okay,” Eric repeats. He’s not thinking about a next time, or what it would take for Kent to know him. He wonders if it’s even possible the way he’s not really sure he believes in Foxtrot’s tarot cards.

The sheets are getting sticky. Kent kicks the comforter down to their waists.

“What now?” asks Eric, lightly scratching his thumbnail against Kent’s hipbone.

“Gimme a sec,” Kent says, “and I’ll get back in there.”

Eric laughs, smiling ruefully, and suggests, “Or you could fuck me?”

Kent tilts Eric’s chin up and kisses him unsteadily, like he’s afraid of it. But then again, Eric is too. He knows where the door is, and he threads his fingers into Kent’s hair, and his hands won’t stop shaking.

“How d’you like it?” Kent asks as he reaches over Eric, grabbing a condom box out of the nightstand.

“A little rough,” Eric answers. His fingers tighten in Kent’s hair when the lube snaps open. “Not too deep, unless I say so.”

Kent smirks, teasing slick fingers over Eric’s hole. “Bossy.”

Eric presses a thumbnail into Kent’s bottom lip, breath going shallow when Kent hits his prostate again, and counters, “Bratty. Hurry up.”

Kent pushes Eric onto his back and gets between his thighs, urging him to plant his feet. He rolls a condom on, squeezes more lube over it, and lines himself up. They both breathe, Kent braced over Eric just far enough away that he couldn’t kiss him without reaching for it, until Eric whispers, “C’mere, honey,” and Kent pushes in as he dips down to suck at his bottom lip.

“Fuck,” Eric hisses, scrambling to wrap his legs around Kent’s waist and digging his ankles in. Kent chuckles against his mouth and pins one of his wrists to the bed, which— _God._ “Yeah,” Eric tells him, tugging just enough to feel like he’s testing the hold. “No more than that.”

“Got it,” Kent murmurs, and bites down on the crook of Eric’s neck with the next snap of his hips. He keeps it shallow, barely brushing Eric’s prostate, which is absolutely _infuriating_ and exactly what he wanted.

At least they figured one thing out.

The condom is ribbed, catching against Eric’s rim in such a different way than the softness of Kent’s tongue before, and it’s driving him out of his mind. He scratches his nails down Kent’s back with the next thrust, really digging in, and Kent whines into the hickey he’s leaving, breath hot and damp against the dull throb of it.

“C’mon, honey,” Eric taunts. “This all you’ve got?”

Kent lifts his head up and raises an eyebrow.

Eric nods, uses his free hand to shift a pillow between his head and the wall, and braces for impact.

Kent fucks in deep, still not all the way but even rougher than before and more desperate—like he’s really trying to pour out everything he has. He’s watching Eric, though, wide-eyed and waiting, because he knows there’s more to take.

“This is pathetic,” Eric says. He’s far more breathless than he’d like—it’s been _ages,_ sue him—but he thinks maybe it comes off as bored. “Are you even trying?”

And then he bites back urge to scream, because Kent grabs one of his legs and hitches it over the shoulder and it deepens the angle just on the edge of too much, even with how fucking _hot_ it is to be fucked like it’s someone’s job. He’s barely hanging on, the only thing keeping him tethered the hand pinning his wrist. Everything else is floating him—the way Kent stops breathing and starts gasping for enough air, the sound of their skin slapping together, the heady feeling of power he gets whenever he sees the earnest look on Kent’s face and thinks, _Mine._

This is exactly what he wanted, down to the tears welling back up. He could have saved them so much time.

“You like this, honey?” he asks softly, reaching up to run his free hand through Kent’s hair.

Kent nods, whimpers, closes his eyes as the sound chips his teeth on the way out.

Eric tightens his grip. “Then stop bein’ so ungrateful. I let you fuck me and you won’t even touch my dick?”

Kent makes another wounded noise and drops his hold on Eric’s calf to take his dick up, stroking him clumsily as he tries to keep pace. The angle isn’t as good anymore, but it doesn’t matter. Eric is so close and Kent is bringing him off just right—like it’s going to rip out of him and leave him with that boneless feeling he can never quite find on his own.

“Fuck, I’m so—so close—tighter, can you— _fuck,_ yes!” Eric turns and bites at the pillow as he comes, feeling it smear over Kent’s hand and over himself, too, sloppy and perfect. His hand is a vice grip in Kent’s hair and he starts to feel bad about it until Kent keens, shoving his face into the crook of Eric’s neck, and rabbit-jerks his hips to stillness inside Eric.

Kent is a heavy weight, draped over him and smearing sweat and come everywhere. It feels nice, even if Eric’s ribs are compressing a little. He’s not sure how deeply he’d be able to breathe either way, so he doesn’t complain.

“…Did you come?” he asks eventually.

Kent laughs breathlessly. “’S there a stronger word for it?”

“Just checking,” Eric says faintly. He pets at Kent’s hair. “Was that all okay?”

“Christ.” Kent licks a stripe up the side of Eric’s neck, stopping behind the shell of his ear. _“Yes.”_

Eric drops his arm to the bed. “Okay. I can’t feel my toes.”

“Unfortunate,” Kent says. “I think I’m dead.”

“That’s nice,” says Eric. He closes his eyes.

Kent lays on top of him for three or four more breaths, then pushes up onto his forearms. Eric watches him grip the base of the condom when he pulls out, then toss it into the wastebasket without bothering to tie it off. Ew, but whatever.

Kent sits back on his haunches, face still red and sweaty and his hair flopping in his eyes.

He really is beautiful. Eric runs a hand through his own hair and asks, “What now?”

“I vote shower again,” Kent says. “Then pizza, then we write our own obituaries, like, just in case, and we see if I can fuck you against the wall.”

Eric pretends like it’s a hard choice. He sits up, wrinkling his nose at the sensation of come slipping against the folds of his stomach. “I’m in favor.”

“And then you stay the night,” Kent adds, and, just like that, the life Eric hasn’t had yet flashes before his eyes.

He’s not sure what does it. The thought that this is the kind of thing you can wake up to, maybe, or the sudden horror of being found exactly where he left himself. It’s easy to be needed—the person who feeds someone else, the only one who thinks to bring a curtain rod. He doesn’t know how to be the body someone else wants in a bed, the warm thing chipping at cracks in the brick.

He thinks about hydrangeas, water parks, old tablecloths. Learning about shrapnel. Where the thing is that maybe they aren’t even good for each other—Eric always running and Kent throwing open doors and getting out of the way. But the thing—the other one, the one that lives somewhere deeper under his ribs—is that maybe he’s finally tired.

Bitty looks away, out of the window. There’s a tree in the backyard, and more empty flowerbeds. He keeps his eyes there and holds his breath until it hurts, and says, “Okay.”

**Author's Note:**

> I pretend that I'm a multishipper but bittyparse is my otp-of-otps. Come scream with me about them [on Tumblr <3](http://www.yoursummerfrost.tumblr.com)


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